Save Our Sims IPO Aims at Legally Challenging Linden Labs

Continuing to lead the charge of Landowners challenging the legality of the Openspace Policy Change, Intlibber Brautigan, who had already pledged half of the Ancapistan Capital Exchange's Currency Exchange(ACE^2) fees (1%) to the Save Our Sim Movement, announced on November 14th that SOS was issuing an IPO, and has formed the Grid Representation Foundation as an Iowa non profit corporation.

"ACE is not charging any fees on this IPO, as this a social good rather than a for profit company. Furthermore, ACE is donating 50% of its 1% currency trading fees to the foundation for its legal action. SOS is encouraging its members to donate to this IPO and to use ACE for their currency trading needs," Intlibber Brautigan stated in the official press release announcing the IPO.

Recent declarations by Linden Lab propose to increase tiers on open space sims by 67-233% by January 1st. In response almost 2000 Second Life Residents, many of which are some of Second Life's biggest Landowners, called for a Lindex Currency Exchange Boycott. Since the initiation of the Lindex Boycott, the ACE Currency Exchange (ACE^2) has seen a massive influx of volume, including a large number of new active accounts registered at ACE.

"Unfortunately there is a clique inside the lab that believes conflict maximizes creativity," Brautigan previously stated, and if he is right Linden Labs may be facing their biggest conflict to date.

Some have tried to contend that while doing away with grandfathering and increasing the tier on Openspaces is only a $50 increase (from $75 to $125), Brautigan recently said on the MBC News, "Trying to poopoo the issue by saying 'it's just $50' is an evasion. BNT may be a large landowner in SL, but in the grand scheme of things, this translates really into that (BNT:ACE) are a mom and pop outfit. If you take the $50 and times that by the 17 openspaces (BNT:ACE) have, that is more money than the mortgage on my real life house. So essentially Linden Labs is costing me my mortgage. So that's nothing minimal in real terms."

Hermit Barber, in the SOS IPO prospectus explains, "Nobody has the right to unilaterally change the terms of a contract after it is made, without the agreement of all the parties. Linden Lab's restrictions on open sims and much higher fees than were the case at the time they were sold represents such changes. Linden Lab's acknowledgment that their network infrastructure is incapable of supporting the product they have already sold constitutes admission on their part that the representations they made on these products were incorrect, and if anyone in Linden Labs expressed concern about the loads being placed on the networks prior to such sales, the sales may have been been fraudulent. Linden Lab's elimination of grandfathered tier rates, represents bait-and-switch tactics. Given many of their sim customers are also competitors against LL's mainland land business, this also represents illegal anti-competitive action which could fall under anti-trust or even RICO statutes."

"The major issue is when they changed the prim limit, when they doubled the prim limits," Brautigan also said on MBC News, "And Linden Labs started actively promoting these as "personal getaways", not as oceans or wilderness, they promoted it as personal getaways--they sold about 10,000 with that sales marketing premise--and if there was not technical support for using these as a personal getaway, then that was false advertising and by changing the tier prices after they sold all of these os's, that makes it bait and switch which under the law is illegal. And when you are dealing with the fact that many of the Openspace owners are estate owners who are in competition with Linden Labs, then you are dealing with anti-competitive activity which is another area of the law where their actions are illegal, and may even fall under RICO statutes."

SOS is incorporated in the US State of Iowa as a nonprofit corporation and has applied to the IRS for charitable status so that gifts to the organization can be made tax deductions.

"Initial research by chief counsel indicates that bait and switch is an offense falling under Racketeering, Influenced, and Corrupt Organizations Act statutes, and as such, any civil litigation claims falling under RICO can receive up to trebel damages in a successful suit." Barber goes on to explain, "Linden Lab sold approximately 10,000 openspace sims between March 1 2008 and Oct 31 2008. This equates to 2.5 million USD. Suing as a class, we would be entitled to collect 7.5 million USD in a successful verdict, plus legal expenses."

"The first step in any strategy will be to obtain an injunction against LL imposing their policy or interfering in group activities for the duration of the case. The duration of the case could, alone, end their attempts to impose this policy." Barber promises.